HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY is a joint-stock association
formed for the purpose of importing into Great Britain
the furs and skins which it obtains, chiefly by barter, from
the Indians of British North America. The trading forts
of the company are dotted over the immense region
(excluding Canada Proper and Alaska) which is bounded E.
and W. by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and N. and
S. by the Arctic Ocean and the United States. From
these forts the furs are despatched by boat or canoe to York
Fort on Hudson's Bay, whence they are shipped to England
to be sold by auction.

In the year 1670 Charles II. granted a charter to Prince Rupert and

seventeen other noblemen and gentlemen, incorporating them as the
“Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into
Hudson's Bay,” and securing to them “the sole trade and
commerce of all those seas, straits, bays, rivers, lakes, creeks, and
sounds, in whatsoever latitude they shall be, that lie within the
entrance of the straits commonly called Hudson's Straits, together
with all the lands and territories upon the countries, coasts, and
confines of the seas, bays, &c., aforesaid, that are not already actually
possessed by or granted to any of our subjects, or possessed by the
subjects of any other Christian prince or state.” Besides the
complete lordship and entire legislative, judicial, and executive power

within these vague limits (which the company finally agreed to

accept as meaning all lands watered by streams flowing into

Hudson's Bay), the corporation received also the right to “the whole
and entire trade and traffic to and from all havens, bays, creeks,
rivers, lakes, and seas into which they shall find entrance or passage
by water or land out of the territories, limits, or places aforesaid.”
The first settlements in the country thus granted, which was to be
known as Rupert's Land, were made on James's Bay and at Churchhill
and Hayes rivers; but it was long before there was any
advance into the interior, for in 1749, when an unsuccessful attempt
was made in parliament to deprive the company of its charter on
the plea of “non-user,” it had only some four or five forts on the
coast, with about 120 regular employes. Although the commercial
success of the enterprise was from the first immense, great losses,
amounting before 1700 to £215,514, were inflicted on the company
by the French, who sent several military expeditions against the
forts. After the cession of Canada to Great Britain in 1763,
numbers of fur-traders spread over that country, and into the
north-western parts of the continent, and began even to encroach on the
Hudson's Bay Company's territories. These individual speculators
finally combined into the North-West Fur Company of Montreal,
of which Washington Irving has given an interesting description
in his Astoria. The fierce competition which at once sprang up
between the companies was marked by features which sufficiently
demonstrate the advantages of a monopoly in commercial dealings
with savages, even although it is the manifest interest of the
monopolists to retard the advance of civilization towards their hunting
grounds. The Indians were demoralized, body and soul, by the
abundance of ardent spirits with which the rival traders sought to
attract them to themselves; the supply of furs threatened soon to
be exhausted by the indiscriminate slaughter, even during the
breeding season, of both male and female animals; the worst
passions of both whites and Indians were inflamed to their fiercest, and
costly destruction of human life and property was the result (see
Red River Settlement). At last, in 1821, the companies,
mutually exhausted, amalgamated, obtaining a licence to hold for 21
years the monopoly of trade in the vast regions lying to the west
and north-west of the older company's grant. In 1838 Hudson's
Bay Company acquired the sole rights for itself, and obtained anew
licence, also for 21 years. On the expiry of this, it was not renewed,
and since 1859 the district has been open to all, the Hudson's Bay
Company having no special advantages beyond its tried and splendid
organization. The licences to trade did not of course affect the
original possessions of the company. These it retained till 1869,
when they were transferred to the British Government for £300,000;
in 1870 they were incorporated with the Dominion of Canada. The
company, which now trades entirely as a private corporation, still
retains one-twentieth of the entire grant, together with valuable
blocks of land round the various forts; and these possessions will
doubtless, as the country becomes opened up and colonized, yield a
considerable revenue at some future time.

For further information see the Report of the Select Parliamentary Committee

in 1857; The Hudson's Bay Territories and Vancouver's Island, by H. M. Martin,
1849; An Examination of the Charter and Proceedings of the Hudson's BayCompany, &c., by J. E. Fitzgerald, 1849; Notes of a Twenty-five Years Service in theHudson's Bay Territory, by J. Maclean, 2 vols., 1849); The Great Lone Land, 1872,